Your Questions

Q: How can we afford a $1 trillion bill for covering the uninsured?

Keep your doctor and plan if you like it, but your plan will be strengthened and you'll be protected from insurance company abuses.

Q: How can we afford a $1 trillion bill for covering the uninsured?

A: First, let’s be clear – every penny of this bill is fully paid for. In fact, the bill will reduce the Federal deficit by $130 billion in the first decade and about $1 trillion in the second decade.

The truth is, most of the cost goes to providing tax credits for families and small businesses and for providing basic coverage for more individuals and families.

Over half of the cost comes from taking money that the American taxpayer already spends on health care ---eliminating waste and fraud, improving efficiency and quality--and devoting those same dollars to helping individuals, families and small businesses buy insurance on their own.

So unlike the tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug program that were passed over the past decade without being paid for, health reform is fully paid for and will reduce the deficit, period.

The real question is whether we can afford not to reform our broken health care system. Without reform, health care costs will continue to rise three times faster than wages, crushing families, businesses, the economy and our government. If we do nothing, by 2040 one out of every three dollars will be tied up in the health care system. We need look no farther than to the 39% proposed premium increase in California to get a sense of the cost of doing nothing.